The present invention relates, in general, to a lighting device, and more particularly to a combined contour and ambient lighting device for a motor vehicle.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
Lighting devices come in various types and shapes to illuminate a space or to identify or highlight certain articles or objects. These lighting devices are oftentimes referred to as contour lighting as they accent the shape and contour of an object being highlighted. Contour lightings find applications in equipments or machines and also in motor vehicles. In particular, when used in motor vehicles, contour lightings find applications for speakers, buttons, control panels, cup holders etc. These types of lighting devices are in fact lighting strips which highlight certain contours. Such contour lightings are typically line lights that are realized by a light conductor which tracks the contour being highlighted. The light conductor is directly visible or installed behind a diffuser disk. Light is projected into one end face of the light conductor and exits to the side along the light conductor so that a linear light strip becomes visible.
To avoid an adverse impact on the properties of such a light-conducting element, such as a light conductor, such an element requires a cross sectional area of at least about 7 mm2, whereby a height/width or diameter should not be less than 2.5 mm. Parameters that limit the use of diffuser disks include production and integration in the available installation space. For that reason, conventional contour lightings have a significant width, i.e. the bright light strip is fairly broad, i.e. typically about 2.5 mm or more. Such a broad light strip is however in some cases undesired for optical reasons as the object to be highlighted is fairly small so that such a broad light strip would virtually be overdimensioned, or for structural reasons because it may not be possible to install such a broad light strip.
Ambient lighting also finds oftentimes application in motor vehicles to illuminate a room. For that purpose separate lighting devices are installed.
It would be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved multi-functional lighting device to obviate prior art shortcomings.